"The secret to happiness is to admire without desiring." – Carl Sandburg

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Progress

I can’t believe I haven’t blogged since May! I’m not going to even try to catch up. Needless to say it was an awesome summer filled with Busch Gardens, Water Country, boat rides, a visit from family and lots of ice cream.

Now we’re getting in gear for fall. Today is the day I visit the attic and pull out the Halloween decorations. I’ve already made chili and cornbread once and I’m starting to transition from iced coffe to hot.

Nolan moved rooms at daycare twice since we last spoke. Due to his late birthday he had to be on the fast track to the pre-k class. He’s doing well and I’ve seen a lot of positive changes with his behavior and attitude.

He seems to have suddenly turned into a more rough and tumble boy lately. It’s been quite a month with him between a concussion, croup, bruised rubs, and hitting himself in the face with a shovel. 0_o

I for one can’t wait for Kindergarten. His school is on the corner of our neighborhood and after school care is in the school. I hope everything works out the way we hope and our commute will be cut by a good hour/day. I plan to walk him to school with the dogs and if possible go home on the afternoons, get the dogs and then get him. The afternoon is more iffy but the mornings should be fine and walking is easier than driving because that drop-off line gets crazy.

My summer garden did pretty well. Better than last year. Got a lot of beefsteak tomatoes, cucumbers, a little lettuce, some kale, one carrot.

There isn’t any great area in our yard with a lot of sun so stuff came in late and some didn’t grow at all. I think part of it was the seed pods I used.

To get ready for fall I pulled out the pepper plants that weren’t producing and put them in containers and they’re doing much better, though I don’t know if they’ll actually bear any fruit.

We have been getting jalapeños now and I made some salsa with the last of my tomatoes and it’s amazing! I don’t even like salsa.

I really enjoy gardening so for fall I’ve expanded.

I built that fence and gate by myself when Josh and Nolan were out of town. Go me.

Nolan helped me make the mounds and plant the seeds yesterday. He also wrote most of the labels. Can you believe it!? I mean he had help with some letters, but still.

I had already planted seeds in the boxes and they’re doing okay but I needed to replant the lettuce and some kale because we had crazy rains two weeks ago that ruined it. We got 10 inches of rain in 3 days and schools were even closed.

This year we’ve used a bit of our own compost and a little we bought (needed some to plant grass seed). By next year we shouldn’t need to buy anymore. The chickens provide plenty of compost with their poop, pine bedding and then whatever scraps we throw out there.

Speaking of the chickens they’re doing pretty well. We only have 2 of the original 6 left. Predators (fox – 2, Hawk -1, Monty -1) got four of them. We ended up driving out to Windsor to buy 4 more Buff Orringtons the same age.

Right now we’re averaging about 2 eggs/ day. Some are definitely being slackers. Our favorite chicken (we call her Chicken Parrot) is the only one producing daily.

The black chicken (we call her Fancy) we know isn’t producing because she’s the only one who should be laying white eggs rather than brown (you can tell by the color of their ears).

The difference we’ve noticed with our eggs are harder shells and brighter yolks.

Okay, well, I think that might bring us up to speed for how and I’ll try to update more regularly.